“He hid the fact that he was the one who actually shot (Gilpatrick),” Prudden attorney Stuart Popkin told the paper. “It’s a difficult case in that there’s someone that died and your client is the one all the fingers are pointing at ... He decided to accept responsibility and not go through a trial.”

Two years after the shooting, Nancy Patterson showed the Onslow County Sheriff’s Office a Facebook message she received that led them to reopen the case, the paper reported.